A group of 62 Ukrainian troops have crossed into Russia’s Rostov Region seeking shelter to save their lives amid an intensified counteroffensive recently launched by anti-Kiev militia in southeastern Ukraine.

“Today, 62
servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces turned to Russian border
guards asking to let them into the Russian territory near
Russia’s settlement of Shramko, Matveyevo-Kurgansky district,
with the aim to save their lives,” the spokesman for the
FSB's border guard office in the Rostov Region, Nikolay Sinitsyn,
told Itar-Tass news agency on Wednesday.

They were allowed to cross and provided with a transit corridor
on the principles of humanism, but only after they left their
weapons on the Ukrainian side of the border, Sinitsyn added.

This case became the latest in a series of similar incidents where a total of
over 500 Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia since July seeking
refuge and medical help.

Earlier this week, Ukraine released videos showing alleged
Russian paratroopers captured on Ukrainian territory. Russian Defense
Ministry sources were saying that they probably crossed the
border by mistake during a routine patrol of an area which wasn’t
manned. President Putin, when asked about the issue said he hoped
it won’t be blown out of proportion, since Ukrainian troops
regularly cross into Russian territory, sometimes in armored vehicles
and were never charged with anything and always allowed to return
to Ukraine freely.

Ukraine’s own troops in the meantime are also facing prosecution,
with General Prosecutor’s office announcing on Wednesday that
1,083 criminal proceeding had been launched since the beginning
of the so-called anti-terrorist operation, with people being
charged for “disobedience, unauthorized abandonment of a
military unit or place of service, desertion, evasion of military
service in another way, and so on.”

Anti-Kiev militia in the meantime announced that almost 90
Ukrainian troops laid down their arms and surrendered on
Wednesday alone, following at least 129 the day before, Ria
reports.

On Sunday, the main headquarters of the Donetsk People’s Republic
announced
that it had launched a counteroffensive against Kiev’s “punitive
forces” in the region, blocking and surrounding many of the
military and paramilitary units.

The military equipment captured from local army depots and those
forces surrendering en masse has allowed militia to form 2 tank
battalions, 3 multiple launcher rocket system batteries, 2
self-propelled howitzer batteries, 3 cannon battalions of various
calibers and 8 mortar batteries, the Chairman of the Council of
Ministers of the Donetsk People’s Republic Aleksander
Zakharchenko told the press at the time.

The DPR army will no more act in small groups as instead
full-bodied independent military units had been formed, he added,
announcing the beginning of a major counter-offensive but at the
same time calling on Ukrainian troops to surrender and leave the
territory of the republic, promising absolute safety for everyone
not involved in war crimes against the civilian population.

Ukraine has been engulfed in a violent internal conflict since
April, when Kiev’s military began its crackdown on the southeast
parts of the country which refused to recognize the
coup-installed government.

According to United Nations’ estimates released Tuesday, over
2,249 people have so far been killed and over 6,033 wounded in
the fighting in eastern Ukraine. The number of internally
displaced Ukrainians has reached 190,000, with another 207,000
finding refuge in Russia, the UN said.